Kirkwood Moot Court Competition

First-year student Lisalee Anne Wells was chosen as the best overall advocate in the Twenty-first Annual Marion Rice Kirkwood Moot Court Competition held on April 7. Other participants in the competition were Stuart Baskin, who received an award for the best written brief and was runner-up for overall advocate, Laura Stern, and Scott Sugarman, also first-year students. Arguments were made before a distinguished panel consisting of Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist of the United States Supreme Court, the Honorable Ben. C. Duniway of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Honorable Walter E. Craig of the United States District Court in Phoenix, Arizona.

The hypothetical case that was argued involved an appeal to the United States Supreme Court of a newspaper publisher’s conviction for publishing secret government information leaked to him by a government employee about ongoing government wiretapping. Major issues were the interpretation of the federal general theft statute and First Amendment defenses against its application to this case. Awards were presented at the annual moot court banquet by Justice Rehnquist.

Environmental Law Society

The Environmental Law Society has undertaken three projects for the summer.

The first project will examine techniques for controlling local growth, such as phased zoning, building permit bans, and conditions attached to extension of public utilities into areas of new development. Communities that have attempted to limit their future growth such as Petaluma, Livermore, Palo Alto, and San Jose, will be subjects of the study. ELS plans to publish its findings in a handbook.

The California Land Conservation Act of 1965 is the focal point of the second project, which will evaluate the success of that Act in preserving open space through use of property-tax incentives. The investigation will be a continuation of work begun last summer to look into problems with the current property-tax system.

The third project will examine preservation of water quality on the Truckee River by comparing the objectives and powers of the different agencies with jurisdiction over the Truckee in setting and enforcing water quality standards for the river.

At least 13 first-year students will participate in the projects during the summer.

Students Provide Tax Service in East Palo Alto

Three second-year Stanford law students established a low-cost income tax service to help East Palo Alto residents prepare their returns this year.

Booker Wade of Memphis, Tenn., developed the idea for the project when the Internal Revenue Service publicized the short-comings of existing commercial firms in the field. “We thought that if it was true that most middle-class Americans didn’t need expensive tax help, it probably was especially the case for minority people, who usually don’t have capital gains or other complex tax matters.” At the same time, Booker added, there’s often a “gut” response against going to the IRS directly for help. “You don’t go to the devil to ask how to beat him,” he explained. “IRS may not give you the benefit of the doubt.”

The students, all of whom were black, felt they would have a better chance of relating to the community, which has about 8,000 taxpayers and is predominantly black.

After applying unsuccessfully for a foundation grant to underwrite the service, they obtained a private bank loan for several hundred dollars and designed their operation to break even financially. Seven law student volunteers were paid only enough to make up for funds they might otherwise earn through work-study programs.

All three of those who organized the project worked with legal aid in East Palo Alto last year. Besides Wade, they included Tyrone Holt and Bill Dawson. The tax service was developed after conversations with Law School Dean Thomas Ehrlich, Visiting Professor M. Carr Ferguson, a nationally known tax expert from New York University, Nancy Simpson, assistant general counsel for the Internal Revenue Service in San Francisco, and Cecil McGriff, an East Palo Alto attorney formerly with the IRS.

Awards

Dean Thomas Ehrlich announced recipients of the awards for the highest and second highest cumulative grade point averages in the graduating class at the School’s eightieth commencement exercises on June 17. Donald Edmund Kelley, Jr. was named the Nathan Abbott Scholar for his first place in the Class of 1973. Mark Robert Dushman received the Urban A. Sontheimer Third-Year Honor.

Messrs. Dushman and Kelley were among those elected to Order of the Coif. Others included were Susan Lou Cooper and Garrett Lee Hanken. The Stanford Chapter of Order of the Coif was established in 1912. Third-year students ranking in the highest ten percent of the class academically and deemed worthy of the distinction are elected to membership in the Order, the national law school honor society for the encouragement of scholarship and advancement of ethical standards in the legal profession.

Stephen John Boatti received the Lawrence S. Fletcher Alumni Association Prize, awarded annually by the Stanford Alumni Association to a law student who has made an outstanding contribution to the life of the Law School.

Morton Discusses Energy Shortage

Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton discussed the energy crisis, construction of the Alaska pipeline, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) with students at an informal talk in March. He was accompanied by Jared Carter ’62, Deputy Under Secretary, who also spoke with students.

“Like it or not,” said Secretary Morton, “our country will need twice as much energy within ten years and it will have to come from somewhere. If we delay in developing our own supplies, we may become dangerously dependent on foreign sources, mainly the Middle East. Environmental considerations are only one factor in the decision whether to proceed with projects.”

According to Morton the question is not whether to develop energy projects but how best to do it, since a cutback in consumption does not appear to be a viable political or economical alternative. He said, “some environmental disruption is inevitable.”

Serjeants-at-Law Holds Trial

Serjeants-at-Law sponsored three mock trial sessions this Spring. They included voir dire, eyewitness examinations and expert examinations. The major issues confronting participants were whether or not a film seized by police was obscene and the problem of eyewitness identification of the defendant. Two expert witnesses, Dr. Henry Brietrose of the Communications Department and Dr. Donald Lunde, a psychiatrist, testified on whether the film appealed to prurient interests, had redeeming social value, and went beyond the “customary limits of candor.” Professor Jack Friedenthal, Judge Sidney Feinberg of the Palo Alto Municipal Court, and Assistant Dean Thelton Henderson each judged one of the sessions.

Law Forum Speakers

The Law School hosted other guest speakers during spring semester. Professor Norman Selwyn of the University of Aston in Birmingham England spoke on the British Industrial Relations Act of 1971 on April 13. Professor Selwyn is the author of numerous books and articles and is also an associate of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries, a Barrister-at-Law, and a Justice of the Peace.

The Law Forum’s guest speaker program featured Justice William H. Rehnquist, as reported earlier in this issue. Other programs included Francis N. Marshall, chairman of the Committee of State Bar Examiners, who reviewed how the Committee operates; James R. Hoffa, former Teamsters Union president, who discussed prison reform and union politics; and Assemblyman Dixon Arnett of San Mateo, who discussed the Equal Rights Amendment, environmental issues and other concerns now pending in the California Assembly.

The Law Forum also continued its Alternatives in the Practice of Law program by presenting Paula Liit of Los Angeles and Norton Tooby ’70 of the Palo Alto Legal Commune. The Forum also sponsored programs on “The Future of Legal Services to the Poor” with Stephen Manley, Director of Community Legal Services in Santa Clara County, Read Ambler ’68, Public Defender’s Office of Santa Clara County and Judge Sidney Feinberg of the Municipal Court of Palo Alto. The O.E.O. Legal Services program was discussed by Alan W. Houseman, director of the Michigan Legal Services Assistance Program.

Frank Donner, who works with an ACLU research group at Yale, spoke about the attorney’s responsibility for protection of individual rights. Civil liberties litigation was the subject of Arthur Kinoy of New York’s Center for Constitutional Rights.

Lunch with Lawyers

On Saturday, March 10, a group of local judges and attorneys gathered at the home of Alma Kays for an informal luncheon discussion with students. The occasion, sponsored by the Board of Visitors Women’s Committee, was designed so that students could meet some of the women lawyers in the area to discuss the various fields in which they are engaged.